In the Land of Armadillos Read Online Free PDF Page B

waiting to die.”
    â€œLook around,” she said bitterly. “Can you blame him?”
    â€œThe war will not last forever,” he reminded her, ignoring the provocation. “He’s an essential worker to the Reich. He’s safe. He has plenty to eat. You would think he’d cheer up a bit.”
    She looked closely at the man behind the desk. In his thirties, not thin but not heavy, either, just now an earnest expression on his blunt bully’s face. She noticed, too, the black uniform trimmed with silver braid; the SS eagle on the cuff, the twin lightning slashes on the collar; the red swastika armband, the gun in the smooth leather holster on his belt.
    â€œWhy is this so important to you, Sturmbannführer?” she asked curiously.
    Years later, at the trial, she would recount this part of the conversation, and his response would save him from the gallows. “I don’t know,” Max admitted, his voice dropping a notch lower as he probed himself for an answer. “It’s not like me at all. I’ve seen many people die, Frau Lipowa. I won’t get into the specifics. And usually, what I feel is nothing. The way I see it is, today it’s them, tomorrow it’s me, it’s a throw of the dice who gets the bullet. But with Toby . . . there’s something about him, I can’t explain it. I don’t care whether he is a Jew, a Catholic, or a Buddhist. I want to help him if I can.”
    She regarded him with an expression he could not read; and then there was a little sigh, a drop of the shoulders, and she gave in.
    â€œHe was always very sensitive,” she offered reluctantly. “He tried not to show it. A man beating an animal, a mother screaming at her child in the street, these things would bring tears to his eyes. He pretended it was all very funny, the world, a great big cosmic joke, but it would find its way into his drawings or another one of his stories. But waiting to die? No . . . you wouldn’t use that phrase to describe Tobias Rey. He loved clubs, the theater, restaurants, women. All of it. He had a tremendous appetite for living.”
    Interesting, though ultimately not very useful. Still, she had given him some ideas. “Thank you, Frau Lipowa,” he said. “You may go now.”
    Slowly, she rose to her feet, took a few steps, not yet believing that she was being allowed to leave Gestapo headquarters. At the door, she turned. “Where’s Aliza?” she asked.
    â€œAliza?” he repeated, puzzled.
    â€œHis sister,” she said, fastening a stole made from some ferrety animal around her neck. “He adores her. He was always sending her little gifts from wherever he was, postcards with funny drawings. She must be fourteen or fifteen by now. Try her first.”
    â€œThank you, Frau Lipowa,” he said, pleased. “You’ve been a great help. I’ll send Toby your good wishes.”
    â€œNo,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Don’t say anything at all.”
    He watched her walk out the door, tall and long-limbed and desirable, and suddenly he knew why she looked so familiar. She was the naked woman in the drawing titled Paris, 1938.
    *  *  *
    Circumstances conspired to keep Max from putting his plan into action for the next few days. First there was the matter of the stonecutting crew who refused to show up for work. As a solution, he had the striking workers lined up in the market square, where he whipped them, then shot them himself.
    But that was a tea party compared to the next item of business that landed on his plate. Now his superiors wanted him to deliver twenty-five hundred Jews for resettlement. Max was at the end of his rope. It would take an enormous amount of time to select and train new laborers to replace them, to the extent that it might actually harm the war effort. What was Berlin thinking?
    He was in this frame of mind when he